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From: Will Cusack [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 10:42 AM
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Subject: News August 22, 2000


From NY Times
Loans to Buy AIDS Drugs Are Rejected by Africans

 From LA Times
President Warns Against Any Coup

From Various African Sources
Clinton's Proposed Visit Generates Interest And Controversy
Dissident Suspects Charged With Treason

From CNN
Britain warns Liberia over television crew arrests
New U.N. envoy Abubakar in Kinshasa to see Kabila
Burundi's Buyoya cancels trip to South Africa to calm opposition
Angolan rebels kill seven, kidnap seven
New head of Sierra Leone rebels announced
Zimbabwe farm workers said to attack war veterans

From NY Times

Loans to Buy AIDS Drugs Are Rejected by Africans
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 21 -- The United States' offer of $1 billion in
annual loans to finance the purchase of anti-AIDS drugs in sub-Saharan
Africa has been rejected by South Africa, one of the countries most
devastated by the disease, health officials say. Namibia has also
rejected the offer, and other nations in this stricken region are
voicing serious reservations, the officials say.
South Africa, the nation with the largest number of people infected with
the virus that causes AIDS, and Namibia said they needed affordable
drugs, not loans that would burden their economies.

Officials at the Southern African Development Community, which
represents 12 other countries in the region, along with South Africa and
Namibia, are also expressing doubts about the proposal. They say they
would prefer the United States pressure American drug companies to
reduce prices and to support countries that are disregarding patents and
producing generic drugs more cheaply.

"Members are already burdened by debt," said Dr. Thuthula Balfour,
director of the health unit of the Southern African Development
Community, in a telephone interview from Pretoria. "Making drugs
affordable is the solution rather than offering loans that have
interest."

The offer last month by the United States Export-Import Bank, an
independent government agency financed by Congress, was made to 24
sub-Saharan countries. Bank officials said that none of the countries
had formally accepted the offer so far. The officials, who emphasized
that it was too early to assess interest in the program, said they were
still educating eligible African nations about the program.

But even when the program was announced, officials acknowledged that
some members of the Clinton administration had doubts about its
benefits. The offer comes at a time when the West is seeking to forgive
as much as $100 billion of the debt held by poor countries, hoping to
free up scarce resources for health, education and other social programs
in those nations.

Marsha Berry, a spokeswoman for the Export-Import Bank, said bank
officials knew of South Africa's concerns. She said they understood
these concerns and the hesitancy expressed by officials elsewhere.

"These are poor countries and should they be taking on more debt? That's
a very valid question," she said in a telephone interview from
Washington.

"We're just doing what we can, knowing it's a small part," Ms. Berry
said. "We have not got anyone to sign on the line yet. But it's going to
take a couple of months of working through these touchy details."

Third world nations have been pressuring the West and pharmaceutical
companies to make costly anti-AIDS therapies more accessible. Earlier
this year, Unaids, the United Nations agency dealing with AIDS, and five
drug companies began negotiating steep drops in prices of the drugs for
poor regions afflicted by the disease.

But some AIDS groups argue that the companies are lowering prices simply
to forestall the seizure of their patents by poor countries desperate
for the drugs. Thailand and South Africa have recently passed laws
allowing such seizure; India, Bangladesh and Brazil have drug industries
that ignore patent treaties.

In May, the Clinton administration angered the pharmaceutical industry
by issuing an executive order saying the government would not interfere
with African countries that violated American patent law to obtain
cheaper AIDS drugs.

In South Africa, where about four million people are infected with the
virus that causes AIDS, health officials say such efforts, which support
the production and distribution of generic drugs, are more useful than
loan programs, said Nothemba Dlali, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of
Health.

Dr. Kalumbi Shangula, the permanent secretary for the Namibian Ministry
of Health, agreed. He said his country simply could not afford the
drugs. In the United States, an American patient might spend $12,000 a
year or more on drug therapy, a price tag way out of reach for patients
in poor African countries.

The Export-Import Bank offers loans to buy the drugs at commercial
interest rates that now average about 7 percent. But health officials in
Namibia are desperately searching for other ways to get drug therapy to
their infected citizens, who make up an estimated 20 percent of that
country's population.

"When you take loans, you are plunging the country deeply into debt,"
Dr. Shangula said. "We are actually looking for ways to acquire the
anti-retroviral drugs to improve the quality of life of our people, but
this does not offer the solution."

From LA Times

President Warns Against Any Coup
From Times Wire Reports

In a remarkable admission of vulnerability, President Pierre Buyoya
warned opponents not to attempt a coup ahead of talks aimed at ending
Burundi's civil war. Buyoya, a Tutsi, apparently directed his warning at
radical Tutsi opposition parties behind recent anti-government protests.
He is scheduled to meet this weekend in South Africa with Nelson
Mandela, the former South African president and a mediator in talks
aimed at settling the seven-year civil war with Hutu rebels. On Monday,
6,000 university students, most of them Tutsis, boycotted classes over
the government's failure to end the violence.

From Various African Sources

Clinton's Proposed Visit Generates Interest And Controversy
Panafrican News Agency August 19, 2000 Lagos, Nigeria

Ahead of next week's visit to Nigeria of US President Bill Clinton, a
U.S. official has denied the reported influx of American security men
into Nigeria, which has drawn sharp criticism from some quarters.

The visit, scheduled for 25-27 August, has continued to generate a lot
of interest and controversy in the country, with one of Nigeria's three
political parties calling for a cancellation of the visit.

Also, in deference to the visit, fuel tank drivers have suspended their
planned nation-wide strike, earlier scheduled to start Monday, so as not
to disrupt the visit.

The Nigerian media has been awash with reports of security and other
preparations for the visit, with some newspapers reporting this week
that 5,000 security personnel have been deployed in strategic points in
Abuja, the only city to be visited by Clinton.

Newspapers have also published Front-page pictures of two U.S. military
planes which landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport
recently.

The massive planes were reportedly ferrying the various gadgets and
equipment to be used during the visit.

But the special information officer for the visit, Steven Lauterbach,
has denied that 5,000 security men were deployed to Abuja, saying, "We
don't have that figure in Nigeria."

Lauterbach said that the U.S. government would conduct its security
arrangement for the visit in a manner that would be fair to all parties.

"We have no more that 10 or 20 secret service agents around," he said.

However, the information officer's denial of the report has not
prevented the chairman of the House of Representatives' committee on co-
operation and integration in Africa, Adedeji Amusa, from describing the
deployment as a ploy to re-colonise Africa.

"The influx of President Clinton's security officers into a sovereign
nation like Nigeria is a plot to start navigating the re- colonisation
of Africa," Amusa said in a statement in Abuja Friday.

He said that Nigeria and the U.S. could not exchange security staff
because they did not have anything in common, adding "in this context,
we view the influx of American security officers into Nigeria several
weeks prior to the president's visit as obnoxious".

Also, the All Peoples' Party (APP) has called on the federal government
to cancel the three-day visit since, according to it, Nigeria had
nothing to gain from it.

The national chairman of the party, Yusuf Ali, said in a radio interview
Friday that tax payers money would only be wasted on the visit, noting
that funds to be expended on the visit should be channelled into
projects that would benefit Nigerians.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, in Nigeria for the past
few days on a separate mission, has been drumming up support for the
visit, which he said, would lead to improved relations between the two
countries.

The American Secretary of Agriculture also visited Nigeria a couple of
weeks ago as a precursor to Clinton's visit.

Clinton's visit will mark the second time an American president will be
coming to Nigeria, the first being the 1978 visit of then president
Jimmy Carter.

Co-incidentally, President Olusegun Obasanjo, who will play host to
Clinton, was also Nigeria's Head of State when Carter visited.

Nigerians expected Clinton to use the occasion of his visit to announce
plans to help relieve Nigeria of its heavy external debt burden as well
as increase in U.S. assistance to the country.

Dissident Suspects Charged With Treason
The News (Monrovia) August 21, 2000 Abdullah Dukuly Monrovia

The Justice Ministry says state prosecutors are prepared to press
treason charges against opposition leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and 14
others - many of whom are out of the country - for their alleged links
with dissidents fighting the government in Lofa County.

Justice Minister Eddington Varmah said all 15 were formally charged
Friday. He told newsmen Friday evening that the government is ready to
present its evidence to the grand jury for the indictment of Jackson E.

Doe, brother of the late President Samuel Doe; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
President Charles Taylor's closest rival in the 1997 election; Charles
Julu, chief bodyguard to the late President Doe who led a group that
briefly seized the transitional government in 1995 and Dr. Fahn-boah
Dakinah, President Taylor's first civilian Health Minister after the
election They are presently out of the country.

The Justice Minister further said an "unexecuted warrant of arrest" is
currently pending before the court against Gen. Roosevelt Johnson,
leader of the disbanded ULIMO-J militia (one of several militias that
fought Taylor' NPFL during the brutal civil war); George Dweh, an
executive of Johnson's former militia; Joe Wylie, a mysterious militant;
Alhaji Gassimu Vamunyah Kromah, leader of the disbanded ULIMO-K faction
and Dr. Vamba Kanneh, a supporter of Kromah. Others are Ignatius Clay of
Roosevelt Johnson's ULIMO-J faction; Laveli Supuwood (a break away from
Taylor's disbanded NPFL faction); Morris Harris, John Gbedze, Jackson
Gaye, Mohammed Jomanday of ULIMO-K and Charles Dent (alias Gen. Snake),
former zonal commander of ULIMO-J. The factional leaders and supporters
have since fled the country.

The Justice Minister said government has also brought treason charges
against Morris Lumbeh, alias "Chuck Norris"; Jackson Paigai; Mustapha
Sesay; Kaifala Fofana; Mohammed Keller; Sekou Kamara; Kemu Kamara;
Roland Babu and one Liberty to be identified. Some of these people are
believed to be in the country but their present whereabouts remain a
mystery.

Once again, Minister Varmah said, the Liberian people are disturbed by
the "devilish and evil desire of some unpatriotic citizens to ascend to
state power by force of arm. This act is occasioned by the engagement of
these unscrupulous individuals in the organization and support of
dissidents."

He said they have, on three separate occasions, invaded Liberia through
Lofa County. The first invasion occurred on April 21, 1999, followed by
another on August 10, 1999, and then the current invasion which began
July 8. Varmah said all these invasions came from neighboring Guinea.

He said government is proud to announce that security forces have
gathered sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie evidence against
15 suspects for treason offenses.

The Justice Minister requested the public to provide information leading
"to the arrest of these fugitives." Meanwhile, he admonished the public
to remain calm as the government is in full control of state security.

Answering questions from journalists, Min. Varmah said the government
will explore diplomatic means with neighboring states to ensure the
extradition of those currently out of the country. He refused to give
the specific number of those out of the country.

He also said citizens must go about their normal daily chores even
though fighting continues to rage in Lofa.

The Attorney General also refused to give specific charges against those
the government is accusing of treason in connection with the Lofa
fighting.

He said "those (evidence) will be made at the court when you go out
there."

Min. Varmah's response to the question stemmed from the denial of one of
the principal accused, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf, who challenged President
Taylor, in an interview from Ethiopia, to prove her involvement in the
dissident activities. But Mr. Varmah told journalists the evidence is
not for the press, but for the court.

Min. Varmah also said dissidents who have been captured in battle with
government forces will be treated as soldiers and prosecuted under the
country's military code.

He also said Mr. Raleigh Seekie, a founding member of ULIMO, now Auditor
General in President Taylor's government, was answering questions from
security forces regarding "certain issues".

Previous press reports speculated that the arrest of Mr. Seekie was in
connection with the Lofa fighting. But. Varmah said Seekie was not
arrested. He was rather asked to give clarification on certain issues.
He did not state the issues.

However, at another press conference Saturday, Min. Varmah confirmed the
arrest of Mr. Seekie on treason charges.

From CNN

Britain warns Liberia over television crew arrests
Sorious Samura   August 22, 2000 Web posted at: 6:36 AM EDT (1036 GMT)

LONDON (Reuters) -- Britain on Tuesday warned that the detention of a
British television crew in Liberia on spying charges had put the west
African state on a collision course with the international community.

Foreign Office minister Peter Hain called for the immediate release of
the crew -- two Britons, a Sierra Leonean and a South African working on
a documentary for Britain's Channel Four network -- who were charged
with espionage on Monday.

"They are not spies, they are journalists, and this is an attack on
international press freedom," he told BBC radio.

"It brings the Liberian government into collision course not just with
the United Nations, which it already is over sanctions busting and
support for the rebel forces in Sierra Leone, but now also against the
whole international climate, which favors press freedom."

Legal sources in Liberia said if convicted the four, who arrived in the
country on August 1, face up to 10 years in jail.

"Perhaps they discovered something that the government doesn't want them
to and so they have acted in this oppressive fashion against them," said
Hain.

"They should be released forthwith and the charges immediately
withdrawn."

Channel Four said lawyers appointed by it to represent the men had not
been in court when the charges were formally laid, but would be
attempting to find out more on Tuesday, when they would also be seeking
to secure bail.

The network's director of programmes, Tim Gardam, told BBC radio the men
had been working on a documentary about how an African country could end
a cycle of political violence.

"The film was discussed in detail with the Liberian authorities before
we went, we had official written permission to film, we explained what
the film was about and we had already interviewed the minister of
defense," he said.

"All that matters now is to put pressure on the Liberian government and
persuade the government that there is no foundation to these charges and
the men should be released."

The four are Britons David Barrie and Zimbabwean-born Timothy Lambon,
South African Gugulakhe Radebe and Sierra Leonean Sorious Samura.

New U.N. envoy Abubakar in Kinshasa to see Kabila
August 22, 2000 Web posted at: 10:18 AM EDT (1418 GMT)

KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters) -- Former Nigerian President Abdulsalami
Abubakar, newly appointed U.N. special envoy to Democratic Republic of
the Congo, arrived in Kinshasa on Tuesday for a meeting with President
Laurent Kabila.

"He will discuss with Kabila questions relative to the Lusaka accords
and clarify once again the role of the U.N. military observer mission
and questions linked to the issue of the facilitator," a United Nations
official in Kinshasa told Reuters.

Agreements signed in Lusaka in 1999 have failed to bring the war in
Congo to an end and fighting continues between rebels backed by Uganda
and Rwanda on one side and government forces backed by Zimbabwe, Angola
and Namibia on the other.

Kabila has declined to allow U.N. observers and troops to deploy in
government-held areas and has rejected the international mediator trying
to foster talks between the government, political opposition and rebels.


"There is also the question of the press campaign, which is worrying New
York. (Abubakar) is mandated to raise this question. It poses a security
risk," the official said.

Senior government officials have publicly denounced and ridiculed the
U.N. observer mission in a campaign that has been readily taken up by
pro-government media.

Burundi's Buyoya cancels trip to South Africa to calm opposition
August 22, 2000 Web posted at: 10:17 AM EDT (1417 GMT)
BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AP) -- President Pierre Buyoya canceled a trip to
South Africa where he was due to meet mediator Nelson Mandela Tuesday,
and instead focused on calming growing Tutsi opposition to a peace deal
aimed at ending the country's civil war.

Buyoya warned hard-line Tutsis Monday not to attempt a coup against him.
Tutsi political parties and groups have demonstrated against the
power-sharing agreement with Hutus.

Buyoya would not travel outside Burundi until at least the weekend, said
Appolinaire Gahungu, presidential spokesman. He said Buyoya would chair
a cabinet meeting Tuesday.

Former South African President Mandela has set Aug. 28 as the deadline
for signing the peace accord.

Mandela, who has been mediating peace talks since December, has invited
U.S. President Bill Clinton and other world leaders to witness the
signing of the accord in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha. It was
unclear whether Clinton planned to attend.

Buyoya, a retired Tutsi major who seized power in a 1996 coup, is under
increasing pressure from middle-class Tutsis and the Tutsi-dominated
army, his main constituencies, not to sign the accord that they say
favors the majority Hutus.

The agreement requires the minority Tutsis to relinquish power in the
government and army, and set up ethnically balanced institutions.

Joseph Nzeyimana, leader of Raddes, a Tutsi political party, said none
of the 10 Tutsi political parties that have been negotiating the peace
accord in Arusha would sign on Aug. 28.

"We will not sign the agreement in its present form," he said. "There
are still issues to be discussed and the debate must be reopened."

Civil war broke out in October 1993 when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated
Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically elected president and a Hutu.


More than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by the
fighting.

On Monday, Buyoya said he did not want to sign the accord without
reaching an agreement with the rebels on whether a cease-fire should
take effect before, during or after the signing, as well as who would
lead a three-year transitional government.

But if Mandela insisted on signing, then he would sign only the points
that had been agreed upon, Buyoya said.

The most powerful rebel group, Forces for the Defense of Democracy, has
rejected the agreement, while the second most important rebel group, the
Front for the National Liberation, did not take part in talks to draft
the agreement.

Only seven Hutu political groups have in principle accepted to sign.

Mark Bomani, Mandela's chief aide to the talks, said any party
obstructing the implementation of the accord would be dealt with
accordingly, a Tanzanian newspaper reported Tuesday.

He said the talks had reached almost their final stage and it was hoped
all 19 Burundian parties and interest groups involved in the peace
process would sign the agreement on Aug. 28, the independent Guardian
said.

Meanwhile, some 6,000 students from the University of Bujumbura, most of
them Tutsis, have been boycotting classes since Monday to protest the
government's inability to curb rebel attacks that have increased in
recent weeks.

The human rights group Iteka, or Dignity, said Tuesday that 18 students
were arrested, but not charged, after sporadic clashes with police
outside the main campus.

A huge fire overnight burned an open market in Jabe, one of Bujumbura's
busiest suburbs. It was not clear what caused the fire that destroyed
most of wooden stalls and small shops.

Angolan rebels kill seven, kidnap seven
August 22, 2000 Web posted at: 6:30 AM EDT (1030 GMT)

LUANDA, Angola (Reuters) -- Angolan UNITA rebels killed seven people and
kidnapped another seven in recent days near Nharea 500 km (300 miles)
southwest of the capital Luanda, church-run radio Ecclesia reported on
Tuesday.

This comes on top of four people killed and two seriously wounded in
separate attacks over the weekend in the town of Seilunga 15 km (nine
miles) from the Bie provincial capital of Kuito.

UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, has been
waging a 25-year battle against Luanda following the country's
independence. The war kas killed about one million and displaced
millions more.

Fortified by huge oil revenues, the government has started to dominate
the country's long-running war although UNITA has stepped up hit-and-run
guerrilla attacks across the oil and diamond-rich country.

New head of Sierra Leone rebels announced
August 21, 2000 Web posted at: 8:35 PM EDT (0035 GMT)

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- The leader of Sierra Leone's brutal rebel
movement has been replaced by his top field commander, a switch regional
leaders welcomed Monday as a sign the rebels may be willing to end a
nine-year civil war.

Foday Sankoh, the now-imprisoned mercurial leader and spiritual guide of
the rebel Revolutionary United Front, was informed of the change during
a Monday meeting with Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah,
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Mali's President Alpha Oumar
Konare.

A joint statement released by the three presidents said the rebel high
command had elected Gen. Issa Sesay, the rebel's top field commander, to
replace Sankoh.

"The Sierra Leone government hopes the new RUF leadership will cooperate
fully with the government" in disarming, freeing its captives and
proving that "it is determined to fulfill its commitments" under last
year's peace agreement, the statement said.

That agreement, which brought the rebels into a power-sharing with the
government and gave them amnesty for past crimes, has been widely seen
as abandoned since the rebels started fighting again in May.

Under Sankoh, the rebels seized large swaths of the country and have
waged a campaign of terror against the populace that has left tens of
thousands of civilians -- including small children -- killed or maimed.

Sankoh, who has been in prison since the RUF broke the peace agreement
in May, met with the three leaders at Freetown's Lungi Airport. There
they showed him a letter signed by rebel field commanders, telling him
about their decision.

The statement said Sankoh then wrote a letter back to the field
commanders, saying he understood their decision and would stand by it.

The rebels apparently decided to change leadership after meeting with a
group of regional leaders in neighboring Liberia in late July, who
pressed the rebels to abandon Sankoh in hopes of moving Sierra Leone
toward peace.

In an additional gesture toward "achieving sustainable peace," the
Sierra Leonean president said he had ordered the release of 171
imprisoned rebel fighters and said he may free more.

Sankoh is not among those to be released. He is widely expected to be
put before a special tribunal that the U.N. Security Council voted to
create last week to prosecute those responsible for the killings and
maimings of civilians.

Zimbabwe farm workers said to attack war veterans
August 21, 2000 Web posted at: 8:43 PM EDT (0043 GMT)

HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- A crowd of 200 black farm workers attacked
60 war veterans occupying white-owned agricultural land in northern
Zimbabwe Monday night and beat them with sticks, a farmers' spokesman
said.

"The situation is very volatile as we speak," Kelvin Weare, a farming
community security spokesman, told Reuters by telephone from Karoi, a
farming town about 120 miles northwest of the capital Harare.

"They beat them with sticks. A number of war veterans were quite badly
hurt," Weare said. "They were trying to chase them (the war veterans)
off the farm."

He said police were investigating the attack but had made no arrests so
far.

"They (the farm workers) were apparently fed up with all the
intimidation that has been going on the past few months," he said,
adding that the farmer they worked for now feared for his life.

Zimbabwe's countryside has been tense since February, when self-styled
veterans of the country's 1970s liberation war invaded hundreds of
white-owned farms demanding that whites return land they say was stolen
at gunpoint during British rule.

President Robert Mugabe says he plans to acquire nearly half the 30
million acres owned by 4,500 white farmers to resettle landless blacks.

A group of veterans Tuesday blocked a highway to protest against the
slow pace of land redistribution.






Will Cusack
Legislative Advocacy and National Outreach
National Summit on Africa
1819 H Street, NW, Suite 810
Washington, DC  20006
(800) 934-3418 phone
(202) 861-8645 fax
[log in to unmask]



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